The Fairlie range of new yachts, shown in this section, have been designed by Fairlie’s Naval Architect Paul Spooner to offer the cruising yachtsmen the perfect platform from which to view the world.

During the past 25-30 years the design of the basic cruising yacht has been developed and honed into the standard white yacht shape that adorn so many of our waterfronts and marinas. This shape has a big wide stern, a very large beam, a fin keel and spade rudder and has come about due to a desire for enormous internal volume, cheap manufacturing costs and a perceived need to have a cruising yacht that is as manoeuvrable as a high performance racing yacht. So why have cruising yachts developed this way when so many people believe that the most beautiful and aesthetic yachts of all times are those of the ‘20s and ‘30s? At Fairlie these traditional levels of beauty and elegance are still possible!

The perception of long keeled yachts is one of old fashioned, out-dated performance and handling. But long keeled yachts are not inherently slow. Until the advent of modern materials and construction methods, racing yachts were successfully sailing very fast with long keels, and a well designed, long keeled hull offers many other benefits over a modern fin keeled cruising yacht.

There is incredible directional stability, so there is no need to constantly grip the helm or set the autopilot. But more importantly there is the motion in a seaway, a long keeled hull gives much gentler motions, the issue of slamming is forgotten and the whole experience is generally much more comfortable, the hull carves a course through the waves as opposed to bouncing and slamming over the top.

Fairlie yachts are not designed for weekend cruising in the Solent, they are designed for extensive, ‘blue water’ cruising, and for this purpose a hull of this form is ideally suited.

Fairlie’s range of new designs, at present, consists of 60’, 70’, and 90’ yachts, as well as a couple of other ideas based around the 70’ model. The designs have been developed to suit what is thought to be the aspirations of a typical Fairlie Client. However due to the in house design process, any aspect of the designs can be changed, whether simply a change to a traditional gaff rig or even down to the shape, style and size of the hull, and indeed completely new design proposals can be undertaken.

All yachts are fitted with the highest standard of machinery and systems to cater for the owners every need. The only things that are set in stone are that the yachts are built from wood, to the very highest standards, and the level of finishing and detailing is second to none.

The yachts are built by the same craftsmen that have restored the famous classics that can be seen in the ‘Restorations’ pages of this site. Fairlie Yachts are built with the same compulsion to perfection and detailing, as well as the design ethos of the great cruising and racing yachts of the turn of the century, but with the possibility of accommodating modern systems and engineering.

“Although it is possible to build exact replicas of Fife and other classic cruising yachts, it is not always in the owner’s best possible interest. Modern expectations of how a cruising yacht should be fitted out have clearly changed dramatically with the development of electrical and engineering systems and today’s requirements for safety. The original lines of a yacht from the 20’s and 30’s simply were not designed with all this in mind and they tended to be very small inside and very wet on deck. So I have designed the new yachts around the systems requirements and performance expectations of the modern owner, whilst holding on to the traditional looks and sailing characteristics of some of the most beautiful and well respected cruising yachts of all times.”